Uncategorized

Good grief, what a day!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Today, I would normally have done our second stock up trip to the city. I did the Costco trip last week, so this week would have been our non-Costco run through several stores all along one route.

With all the running around into town I had to do, however, I was able to take advantage of some excellent sales at the local grocery store. The only things left to pick up are more cat food and litter pellets, and we don’t actually need to do that immediately. Those can also be done in the smaller, nearer city, instead of dealing with the big city traffic. I was thinking of leaving the trip until later in the month.

Then yesterday’s flood happened.

We need to replace that old, metal blower fan in the basement with something safer and more efficient.

I had looked at one in Costco last week for $80 and almost bought it, but decided it could wait another month.

After talking about it with my husband, he decided to try buying it online. He found the same fan on Amazon, but it was over $100, so he went to the Costco website. They had two versions – white and not white. The not-white is what I saw in the store. They were otherwise identical, but the white one was cheaper. Still more expensive than what I saw in the store – about $85 for the white one, almost $90 for the not-white one. So my husband was going to order two of them. The only option was for delivery, though, not in store pick up. Slower, but saving us the gas to drive in.

He couldn’t order it. They don’t ship to postal boxes, and there was no alternative to the mail to have it shipped.

Okay, then, I would just head into the city and buy them direct.

Then I got a phone call.

From my mother.

Of course, she acted as those what happened the last I saw her, didn’t happen at all.

She started off asking how I was doing, but in a tone I recognize to mean “can you do something for me”. I also recognized her “I’m dying” voice.

Sure enough, when I asked how she was doing, she said she was terrible. She started to say how she couldn’t sleep for the past few days – then launched into an attack on my brother. She had called him first, but there was no answer, so she was saying that he blocked her number, or he was ignoring her calls, or he cancelled his number… It was well into the conversation before she finally mentioned that she got a “the customer is not available” automated message.

I had to cut her off and really press to get her to tell me what she was feeling, and what she wanted me to do about it. I finally got her to describe some of her symptoms. Basically, the same ones she’s been complaining about for a while now, but she says it’s worse. She can’t sleep more than an hour.

Aside from talking in circles about a dozen barely related things, she also brought up about wanting to move into the nursing home. She really wants to move into the nursing home, now! My brother told her about her needing to get a doctor to say that’s what she needed, and she mentioned that, vaguely, but she still didn’t quite understand the whole process. I started to get the impression that she thought that if she saw the doctor today, and the doctor authorized it, she’d move in right away. I told her, if she does get the doctor’s authorization, that just puts her on a waiting list. After that, it’s basically waiting until someone died and frees up a bed – and then they work their way through the waiting list.

I think she understood that, but didn’t agree with it, or something. I couldn’t quite get the gist of her thoughts.

Given the time she was calling me, I asked if she wanted me to take her to the emergency, reminding her that if we did, we’d likely be there all night, or to take her to the clinic as a walk-in, tomorrow. She really didn’t want to make the decision, but it eventually came around to, she would try to sleep in her recliner chair tonight, then call me in the morning to let me know how she as feeling.

So much for my trip to the city to get the new blowers.

At least the fans and the old blower we have now has made a big difference. By the time I checked before heading to bed, most of the floor was dry. Dry enough that I could plug in the box fan and not be standing in a puddle! I aimed that one partly towards the root cellar’s open door. The floor there has some odd low pockets that held puddles, but it was mostly dry all around them. I was able to move one of the pedestal fans and aim it right at the low spot of the floor under the counter shelves. Those are slightly elevated, so at least there’s a bit of air circulation under them.

This morning, expecting to get a call from my mother, I didn’t even do my morning rounds. I just fed the outside cats, and stayed close to the phone.

When she didn’t call by about 9 or 9:30, I called her.

She did actually sound a bit better, but she was still wanting to go to the clinic. She was getting ready. We talked a bit more about how she felt. She didn’t sleep in the recliner; she couldn’t get it to recline more than a tiny bit, and it was too uncomfortable, so she stacked up pillows to sleep more upright. It helped. The more she talked about how she felt, the more it seemed to me that she was having really bad indigestion. With the stuff going on in her building, that could easily be a stress response, too. Since she was clearly doing better, I suggested trying Pepto before bed and giving it another night. She didn’t have any and wasn’t sure what I was talking about, but she wanted to go to the clinic. She was even packing a bag, in case she was admitted to the hospital.

I told her that I could call the clinic ahead of time, so they’d know to expect her, before we left her place. After I got off the phone, though, I went ahead and called the clinic sooner.

It’s a good thing I did.

My mother’s doctor doesn’t work this clinic on Tuesdays, but the clinic, which is in the hospital building, was down to only one doctor today, and she was all booked up. They couldn’t do walk ins. There wasn’t even a doctor in the ER. The clinic and the hospital were down to this one doctor!!! There would be a doctor available tomorrow, though.

My mother wasn’t going to the clinic today.

When I asked about alternatives, the receptionist mentioned a quick care clinic in the nearer city. I wasn’t sure my mother would be up to that, so I called her before looking it up.

She was surprised that there were no doctors at the hospital and just one in the clinic, and I had to explain to her, there just aren’t enough doctors.

In the end, she decided she was willing to wait until tomorrow, though I will phone the clinic again, before I head to her place.

This meant, however, that I could go to the city, after all.

So I offered to swing by, pick up some Pepto, and bring it to her to try. Just in case. At worst, it won’t do anything at all. When she found out I was going to be going to the city anywhere, and wouldn’t be making a special trip, she agreed.

When I got there, even though she knew I was on the way to somewhere else, and said I would stay long enough to explain the directions to her, she still expected me to sit and stay. I told her, I was going to be doing plenty of sitting in the drive to the city! We went over the instructions, and she even took some right away, as she was planning to rest.

She was actually looking and sounding much better. Even between the two earlier phone calls, she sounded better.

Oh, there was one other thing, though… After all the phone calls I made, I got another one – this time from the person with senior’s support that had visited my mother for an evaluation not long ago. She had promised to follow up with me, after she filed her report.

In a nut shell: there are two question-tests she does in these visits. One is for the “big stuff”. This is where they determine if someone might start doing things like forgetting the stove on, wander off, or start forgetting who the people are around them. There was pretty much no change at all in that area, which I was sort of expecting. The other is for the “little stuff” – and for these, there was a substantial decrease. This is the area where we were noticing issues. So we talked about that for a while, and there are medications for cognitive improvement that can be prescribed (the report was sent to my mother’s doctor as well as the doctor they work with), but my mother is already messing with her pills now, because she’s taking soooo many pills (she isn’t), and would likely refuse to take any new medication. I mentioned about her now wanting to move to the nursing home, and we talked about that for awhile. It can definitely be a help for her. Especially when it comes to making sure she takes her medications.

So the cognitive issues of concern I’ve been noticing have been confirmed, and we are already taking what would have been the next steps, anyhow.

Anyhow.

After dropping by my mother’s, I made the trip to Costco to get the blower fans – with turned out to be cheaper than I remember from last week! They were $75 each.

I am so happy with them!

They’ve got 10′ cords (the old blower fan’s cord is barely a foot long), and can be plugged into each other in a series, if desired – or something else can be plugged into them. They have four positions they can be set at, and three power settings for the fan. They automatically shut off if they start to overheat, and have a reset button.

Both of them are now aimed at the stairs, and maximum settings. One mostly at the bottom steps, which are the wettest, while the other is blowing into the corner under the steps; the first area water was pooling at, and still one of the wettest areas.

The old blower fan is now unplugged. I left it otherwise untouched so the motor can cool down, before I try picking it up to set it aside, into retirement!

What a day it’s been!

I’ve got no idea how things will turn out tomorrow, with my mother. I’m really hoping she’s feeling better because, honestly, I don’t think any doctor’s visit or hospital stay can help her. She has too hard of a time explaining her symptoms, skips things, conflates things and, if I have to be honest, I strongly suspect she’s more interested in the attention than anything else! She’s cried wolf too many times in the last few years. It’s not that I think she’s faking her symptoms, but more that she doesn’t understand them and is making assumptions based on what she wants the problem to be, and wants other people to do something about it. No idea what. Just “something”. We’re all supposed to be able to magically know exactly what her problem is and fix it, and she sometimes gets quite angry when we aren’t also mind readers, knowing exactly what she means to say, even when she doesn’t say it. Very frustrating!

Meanwhile, it’s the time of year when we have the most work to do outside, that we need to get done when the weather is good. My brother, for example, didn’t get her call because he and his wife were outside doing yard work. He did eventually get through to her after she spoke to me, but that didn’t make her any happier. These days, he can’t do anything right by her, and it’s really starting to get to him. *sigh*

Ah, well. It is what it is. We do what we have to do, and that’s all there is to it.

I just wish it wasn’t so frustrating at times!

The Re-Farmer

Oh, man, when I screw up…

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

… I don’t go half way.

With the issues we’ve been having, we’ve made a point of using the biological drain maintenance stuff regularly. Mostly, it’s through the toilet or the bath tub. The kitchen sink isn’t done as often, since that section of the main drain got augered last year. More rarely, we do the drain for the washing machine. That one is more because of how the drain and taps are protected by a 2×4 box with a shelf above. Putting anything down that drain requires the use of long, flexible funnel.

With plans to do laundry today, I remembered to pour some of the drain maintenance stuff into the washing machine drain last night.

This morning, after making my trip to the post office, I started a load of laundry, then started working other stuff while my daughter started doing the litters. Since we use stove pellets as litter, it goes into buckets that gets dumped into its own compost pile behind the outhouse.

I heard my daughter head to the main entry to put the first full bucket outside, which got interrupted by an alarmed exclamation.

The entry way was flooded!

This is what happened when the main line was blocked before. It could handle the slow drain of a kitchen sink, but not the fast drain of a washing machine, so the water backed up the drain and all over the floor. This time, though, there was way more water than before! How could the drain have blocked so badly??

While my daughter went for the mop, I sloshed my way to the basement, where I could get the extra sump pump hose. Water was pouring down the stairs, and there were huge puddles all over the concrete floor.

I found the hose, though. This is what we used before, attaching the drain from the washing machine to the hose, and running it out the window on the storm door, which is missing its screen.

As I was preparing to set that up, pausing the washing machine, I suddenly realized…

There was no hose in the drain pipe.

When I took it out to pour the maintenance stuff into the drain, I forgot to put the hose back. At some point a cat must have knocked it behind the machine.

The load was about 3/4 done, which means there was at least two drain cycles that had gone completely onto the floor behind the washing machine.

I pulled the hose up from behind the washing machine and put it in the drain pipe.

*sigh*

So my daughter and I have just spent the last couple of hours mopping up the mess, filling mop buckets repeatedly. We got the bulk of it out of the entry way, then I left her to that and started on the basement. My daughter did set the hose up to drain out the window, though, before restarting the laundry, just in case.

As for the basement…

Well, it sure does show us how uneven the floor is down there!

The root cellar is directly under the entryway, and a lot of the water flowed into there. From there, it flowed to one side of the middle of the basement.

The side where there are counter shelves on the floor, of course.

Since we don’t let the cats down there anymore, I’d moved the screen barrier between the new and old basements. After much mopping and several runs up the stairs to empty the mop bucket outside, I went to turn on the light switch near the opening between the two basements, and discovered water had flowed along the wall and into the old basement, too!!

That basement doesn’t have weeping tile, so it’s set up for wet. There wasn’t enough to bother doing any clean up there.

Once I got to the point where it wasn’t practical to keep mopping up the water, and there was no way we could get to the water pooled along the wall, it was time to set up fans. We have the blower fan that’s used to keep the old basement floor dry – not a problem this year, since it’s too dry – as well as a couple of pedestal fans. Those are now set up where the floor is still dry, aimed at the wet areas. I also brought down a box fan and set it up so it could blow towards the new basement stairs – they have carpet nailed to them, so we really need to get that dry! We have extension cords set up all over the place, all hanging from the ceiling, but I wasn’t willing to plug in the box fan yet, since I would have to stand in a puddle of water to do it! I’d like to find another fan and set it up, facing the root cellar, too.

I also got the Styrofoam insulation out of the basement windows to open them up and allow more air circulation. Only one still has a screen, though. I opened the south facing one, just a crack, but the second east facing one not only doesn’t have a screen, but the plastic part on the glass that is pulled on to slide the window open is basically disintegrated. Since I wasn’t about to move out the shelf that’s under the window to fight with it, I left it be.

With the nights still chilly, we haven’t switched the old basement winter window to its summer screen window, but I might just have to do that early!

What. A. Mess.

Meanwhile, the package my husband was expecting wasn’t among the 4 I brought home – one of which was for my daughter. We finished in time for me to change out of my wet clothes and start another load of laundry, before heading back to the post office to see if the postmaster had processed it, yet.

I’m happy to say that at least that went well. His package was there – along with three others that came in early!

So for the next while, we’re going to have to keep checking on the basement and the fans. I’m not happy using that old blower fan. I imagine it’s something that was acquired through salvage somewhere. The cord to plug it in is clearly not original, and it starting to look old and worn to me. So does the motor itself, to be honest. Costco has industrial blowers at a really good price. They are also plastic, not metal. Since we’re using them for wet floors, I’d much rather not be using a metal fan! We might have to invest in a couple.

We’ll have to set up a fan in the entry way. My daughter was able to mop up quite a bit, but not move the washer and dryer out. There just isn’t much space in the entry.

All because I forgot to put a hose back into the drain pipe.

What a mess I made!!

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up trip: this is what $911 and change, in total, looks like

/ Re-Farmer / 13 Comments

Today, we woke up to rain. Not a little bit, either, but a wonderful steady and heavy rain. It’s expected to keep raining through to tomorrow morning, and I am quite happy to see it. Even in the hours it took me to go to the city and back, the leaf buds on the lilacs beside the house have gotten huge!

It wasn’t heavy enough to cause problems with the drive to and from the city, even with reduced visibility, so that was good, too.

Costco was really busy while I was there. Almost weekend level busy! I was in no hurry, though, which was a good thing. They must have just gotten a huge shipment in, because the wider aisles all had rows of pallets down the middle, with barely enough room for a flat cart to get through on either side. Then there were the abandoned carts, and all the people who would just block traffic. I spent a lot of time waiting for things to clear enough to be able to maneuver around with the flat cart. Of course, there are always those who seem to think I can stop on a dime, and cut me off.

*sigh*

I hate shopping.

But, the first stock up shopping trip for May is now done. This is what a total of $911.58 looks like.

The scary thing is, this is almost all our budget for the month, yet this will not last us the entire month, and there’s really nothing there that’s being added to the pantry. Some things, like the paper products, will last us the month, and I did manage to pick up some good deals on protein. Our next trip will be for the fresh stuff that I generally don’t get at Costco, though I did get more of those bagged salads that they have as much cheaper prices than others.

Once at the till, I had the cat food put on a separate bill again.

With the leaky butt issues with the cats, I did not get the Kirkland brand dry cat food at all, and instead got six 11.6kg bags of Whiskas. For dry cat food, those are pretty much the only two options. Kirkland has 2 options, with one being smaller, more expensive bags.

I also got two cases of wet cat food. Each has 48 cans, which puts the price at 78¢ per can.

Grand total for cat food this time: $340.17 after taxes.

Six bags of kibble will probably last us only 2 or 3 weeks.

*sigh*

Then there was the stuff for us.

Among the non-food items, we got facial tissue (on sale), paper towel (with cat clean ups, we go through quite a bit of that) and toilet paper. There’s ibuprofen for my daughters and acetaminophen for me. That, at least, is inexpensive.

For dairy products, I got our usual 5 pounds of butter; I used to get 10 pounds every month, but with the price of butter going up, while the Costco buckets of ghee are still such a good price, we use that instead for many things. Whipping cream is a much better price at Costco, so I got two of those. Then there were the block cheeses (mozza and old cheddar) and soft cheeses (cream cheese and goat cheese).

Among the fresh items were the double bags of salad mixes; each pair of bags is not much higher than the price of one bag, elsewhere. So I got two double bags in two flavour mixes. That’s the one down side. Not a lot of flavour options. I also got a container of cremini mushrooms (the “mini bellas” on the receipt).

I got only one double flat of eggs this time, plus 2 two-packs of rye bread and three packs of tortilla wraps.

Then there was the mayo, peanut butter, strawberry jam, butter chicken sauce, a bag of hazelnuts, a bag of flour and popcorn.

I did grab a decent amount of protein this time, including fish for the girls. Some, like the ribs and the trout fillet, were on sale. I got canned chicken and their 4 pk of bacon, mild Italian sausage, cod fillets, a really nice, big meaty slab of pork belly, and two hot rotisserie chickens.

There were some good deals in there but, with the cat food, it still broke $900.

Ouch.

Then there was the gas. On the way out, I put $30 in the tank, at $1.449/L That brought my tank to half full so, of course, it was below half by the time I got to Costco.

Filling the tank at $1.329/L totaled $75.96, so my total for gas for the day was $105.96

With $911.58 spent at Costco, that brought the total for the day to $1017.54

Ouch.

The scary thing is, due to a “price break” our provincial government extended on the gas taxes, we have probably the lowest gas prices in the country right now. Yup. I just double checked. Our provincial average price is the lowest in the country. The highest provincial average today is $1.978/L in BC. I just took a look at BC prices overall, and the highest price they’ve got today is $2.239!

If we had those prices here, we couldn’t afford to do the driving that we do.

Speaking of which, my husband had a follow up telephone appointment with his doctor about the new pain meds they are trying him on, to replace the ones that aren’t available anymore. He had only 2 weeks of meds for the trial. His dose has been increased, and the doctor sent the prescription to the pharmacy. I didn’t realize when my husband messaged me about it, that I was supposed to pick them up on the way home. So I’ll have to do that, tomorrow.

While making these trips to the city to stock up saves us a lot, they just suck the energy right out of me. It’s only 6pm as I write this, and I’m fighting the urge to just go to bed!

The Re-Farmer

I’m done.

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

Just done.

Things started going down last night, with Little Miss Leaky Butt making a mess on my bed.  I changed my bedding and got the first load of laundry started before going to bed.

This morning, I woke to find another mess at the foot of my bed.  A small one, but wet enough to soak through to the mattress cover.

So I take the sheets off, but leave the cover for later, since I was out of clean bedding.  With the price of king size sheets, I don’t have extra spares.  There was just one small damp spot, anyhow.

Then Peanut Butter Cup jumped onto the bed next to me while I was taking my supplements, and aimed her butt at me like a shotgun.

I shooed her away, but she still managed to leave a drip behind!

Meanwhile, my younger daughter had already gone through the dining room on her way to the kitchen, where she discovered Ginger had peed on the dining table.

Unfortunately, the dining table being a flat surface, it had stuff on it.  Some of which had to be thrown away.

So for the next while, we were starting more laundry and more clean up.  I did the litters, and after I left, my daughter continued doing a deep clean.

I left early so I could pick up our order of lysine for the cats, then continued to town.  I picked up a couple of cheap vinyl table cloths, then got a few things at the grocery store.  Including tweezers to dig out the sliver I got yesterday, but didn’t discover until this morning, and antihistamines.  I don’t normally have allergic reactions to anything, but I am definitely allergic to something outside.  Likely tree pollen.

Budget?  What’s that?

*sigh*

I made sure to grab a food for lunch to eat in the truck, then called my mother to let her know I would be early.  She was just starting her own lunch, so that was going to work out.

When I got there, I found she had already started on her apartment, and even pulled some furniture from the wall.  As we were talking, she mentioned that she might stay at a motel for tomorrow night, because my sister suggested it.

Of course, both my brother and I had also suggested it, but my mother does love trying to play us against each other.

Which is how things started going downhill.

First, she started attacking my brother, making all sorts of accusations about how he is after her money (as if she has any worth fighting for!). Then she started defending our vandal, who really is after the millions he believes she has squirreled away.  Then she started playing us against each other, while saying how she just wanted us to all get along.

Of course, I defended my brother, while also pointing out how some of the things she was complaining about were the consequences of her own actions.  She still doesn’t understand how badly she screwed herself up when she stabbed my brother in the back, months ago.

I’m not going to say more about the things she said, but she started getting increasingly vile.

Then she brought my daughters into it. 

My daughters, who were doing a deep clean at home, so I could be at my mother’s to take care of her place, due to the consequences of her own actions.

At which point, I told her, that’s it. I’m done.

Then I left.

So I never got in further than her dining table, just a few feet from her door.

On the way out, I pulled over to email my siblings about the situation, then let my family know I was on my way home, and why.

When I got home, my poor daughter was totally wiped out.  She’d had to scrub on her hands and knees in places, and she wasn’t feeling well in the first place.

Oh, and the power was out.

It just came back as I was writing this.  It was out for about an hour.

What a mess of a day.

I’m done. 

I keep saying I’m done with my mother, too.  I don’t need to put up with her abuse.  Who am I kidding, though?  I’ll still help her out.  Not so much for her, but for my brother.  After what she did to him, he tried to cut her out, but he is too good of a man.  He will always do the right thing, even when it breaks his heart.

I think that, more than anything else, bothers me the most about my mother.  She can’t hurt me anymore, but she sure hurts the ones I love.

The Re-Farmer

The things, and then more things

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

I’m going to call this a mostly good, somewhat productive, somewhat frustrating day.

This afternoon, after checking the tracking information again to confirm I had five parcels to pick up at the post office, I headed out once it had reopened for the afternoon. A couple of them were in envelopes, but the others were in boxes. When the fifth one turned out to be the largest of them all, I left it to load the others into the truck, then came back for the last one. Just as I was picking it up, the postmaster quickly added a 6th parcel! There were 5 slips in my mail box, but she found one more! One that was expected to arrive tomorrow, it turns out. Thankfully, it was another bulky envelope, rather than a box.

So this was good. Especially since one of the packages that came in early was a heart monitor my husband got for himself. The kind you strap on while exercising. Our sulfur came in, so I was happy, too.

I was driving home when I heard a Messenger notification on my phone. I pulled into the yard to unload, but remembered to check the message before I went in.

I’m glad I did.

It was from my brother, who was at work. He’d gotten a call from the public housing department about my mother, since he is her Power of Attorney. He needed to talk to me, so I let him know I just got home, then got my daughters to unload and park the truck. I barely got to my office when the phone started ringing.

My poor brother.

The first thing that came up was that they had talked to my mother and asked for his number, since he’s PoA, but she told them she didn’t remember it. They got my brother’s number from me, but this was awhile ago! This is also not the first time my mother has done this. Which is strange, because she calls him herself, and has all our numbers written down in a list on her wall, along with postal addresses, birthdays and anniversaries.

The reason they were calling him, though, was about the bed bug situation. She got their notification that they’re coming in this Friday. My mother has been refusing to let them in for the last few times. This time, she called the number on the letter and talked to the exterminator, saying she didn’t want them coming in, and once again accusing them of theft. The guy would have had to tell the department about this, which leads us to the next issue.

They are coming in on Friday, and she has to have the place prepared – stuff moved away from the walls (difficult, given how tiny her place is), fabric items bagged up, etc. They will be coming in at around 9am, and she has to be gone all day (I believe they know she has respiratory issues, which means she needs to be out for at least 12 hours, instead of the usual 6 hours).

If she doesn’t do this, she will be evicted.

*sigh*

We’ve tried to warn her about this.

My poor brother was already having a stressful time at work, and now he had to deal with this on top of it!

One thing they will also do, though, is provide her with a special mattress cover that will kill off anything on her mattress that might have gotten missed, by denying oxygen.

We talked for a bit and, once he’s home from work, he’ll send a group email to the family. My suggestion was that I could go over on Thursday night to help with bagging things and moving furniture. The best thing would be for my mother to stay at my sister’s on Thursday night, since she has Fridays off, but I forgot that my sister works nights on Thursdays. I’ll be on my own for prepping her apartment. I’d be willing to drive my mother to my sister’s, but she would have to drive my mother back, since Friday will be our first city shopping day. Worse comes to worse, my mother could stay at the motel again, but she would have to check out by noon on Friday, unless she stays for 2 nights, and she would not be willing to do that.

She has no choice, though. She either goes along with this, or gets evicted.

One thing’s for sure. Since I’m the only one that will be able to go over to help her with her stuff on Thursday, I’ll be going straight to the shower, and my clothes to the wash, as soon as I get home!

My mother has zero understanding of just how much her behavior causes problems the rest of us have to fix, and now she’s putting her own housing at risk.

My brother couldn’t talk long, though, since he was already interrupting his work day, but we’ll connect again later today.

By the time I was off the phone, the girls had taken care of things and parked the truck, so I could get stuff together to go back outside and work on the carrot bed. It still had the plastic covered frame on it, so the first thing I did was add metal brackets to the corners before moving it. I most definitely could tell these brackets make a difference!

I was not intending to make another time lapse video of the progress, since I figured it would be pretty boring. I just took still shots of the progress, but I’ve since confirmed a frustration.

To make the photos I included in my previous post smaller, I cropped one, then reduced it to 50% original size. The two garden ones weren’t cropped, but I reduced those to 30%, plus I reduced the colours. Those two ended up being smaller file sizes than the 50% and cropped one. All the photos were uploaded to Google Photos, and inserted into my post from there. On my desktop, WP just tells me my storage is at 98% full, but the app gives decimal points, so when I had the chance, I checked on my phone to see if there was any change.

My storage went from 98.3% full to 98.5% full. Usually, I can upload many more than 3 photos before it goes up by even 0.1%, but for only 3 photos, greatly reduced in file size, to make it to up by 0.2%? Wth, WP?

Clearly, there is zero benefit to storing my images on Google Photo. I’ve tried embedding them, using the share link, etc., but instead of the images, the code shows instead.

So I guess I’ll make a vlog with the still shots, since it turned out to be a bigger job than I expected!

Very early on, though, I got an interruption. One of my daughters came out to let me know my mother had called; they were working in the kitchen and couldn’t get to the phone, but could hear my mother leave a message on the answering machine.

I considered calling her back later, but decided to do it right away.

*sigh*

When I got through to her, she was all chatty, asking how my cold was (I had started to feel one coming on, but that went away a while ago), before going on about how hers is no better (she sounds perfectly healthy), and it was so bad, she thought she was going to die, because of her breathing. At that point, I told her flat out, she says this every time, and it’s getting to the point where I don’t know whether to believe her or not. So she dropped it and instead said she called my sister and asked her to come and take “stuff”. Stuff? What kind of stuff? My mother hemmed and hawed before saying that my sister sews, so… then changed the subject. I guess she was trying to say fabric items? But I’ve helped pack her stuff into bags for previous bed bug spraying, so I don’t know what she’s talking about. With the way she hemmed and hawed before answering, then changing the subject, I suspect she’s trying to hide something from me, and intends to give my sister things that my only my brother, as her PoA, should be seeing.

Then she started asking if I knew about a distant relative that passed away, and I did, because my sister does genealogy stuff and shared the obituary online. My mother wanted me to go to the funeral on the weekend. I don’t know these people at all. I suggested my sister might go, since she’s the one who keeps track of all these relatives, but apparently she already said no, because the funeral is on the Sabbath. ??? I managed to preemptively cut off the possibility of my brother going, since he’s so incredibly busy already, and probably doesn’t even remember them anymore, giving how many decades it’s been since we’ve had any contact. Why my mother suddenly thought it was important for some member of the family to be there, I don’t know. We’ve had other distant relatives pass, and she was never like this before – though she did mention our vandal would probably be there, because apparently he’s friends with them, etc., etc. Okay. So then he should be there. Not me!

I finally got a chance to ask about her grocery status and it turns out that was why she was calling. Her fridge is empty, and she has only 1 bun left. Then she started telling me about the various things she was about to start cooking…

So did she want me to come over tomorrow?

Well, she’s making her list right now, and this and that and….

She would not commit to asking me to come over tomorrow, though when I asked if she wanted me to come over today, she said no. I kept trying to get more information out of her, like if she needed to go to the pharmacy or the bank or anywhere else, and she said now, but with much hesitation. So I finally just said, I’ll come over tomorrow, at the usual time. The usual time? Will I be bringing lunch? I told her that the last time I was at her grocery store, I saw they had the hot meals again, so I could pick up a couple and we’ll have them for lunch. She got downright excited about that!

As we were talking, I kept asking her, is there anything else you need? Anything else you want to tell me? Anything else that’s new?

Nothing came up about the exterminator notification letter or about Friday.

So I let it be. I’ll wait until my brother has had a chance to talk to her.

Which he has tried to do, while I was writing this, but there’s been no answer.

*sigh*

So that was quite the thing.

I’d told her from the start that I’d been working outside, so I finally brought the call to a close so I could get back to it. I think my mother was bored again. I do wish she wouldn’t wait until she’s running out of food, because calling me to help her with groceries! She refuses to do otherwise, though, telling me that if there’s food in the house, that means she has to eat it…

…

…

I never quite know how to take that. It’s not like she’s a glutton who sits around over eating all day, but she makes it sound like the mere act of eating food is a bad thing.

Anyhow.

I’ll be going there tomorrow, and we’ll see if she’s up to climbing into the truck to do her own shopping this time. With only one place to go, I think she might be up to it.

That done, it was back to working on the garden bed, which also involved pulling in the bowed out sides. I’ll do a vlog about that later. For now, I will say, I am really, really starting to hate those @#$@!% Chinese elms!!! Good grief!

I got it done, though, and even added sulfur to the soil at the end. It took way longer than it should have, but it’s done. Tonight, I’ll see if I can put together a vlog using my still shots, instead of posting any pictures. I suppose I could upload them to Instagram, but it seems not everyone can see them when I embed from Instagram, and I wouldn’t be able to explain what’s going on, anyhow.

I’d like to get more stuff done outside while the weather is good, but now I’m going to have to be at my mother’s at least 2 days this week, then on Friday I’m in the city.

This seems to be a constant pattern, pretty much since we’ve moved here. The more work we need to get on top of around here, the more external responsibilities end up taking priority. It seems to be getting worse, instead of better, to the point that we are falling behind rather than getting ahead. Such is life, but when it comes to things like my mother deliberately disrupting things and hurting people the way she does, it’s getting much harder not to get angry at her – and it takes a LOT to make me truly angry!

Thank God my brother is our “landlord” now. Otherwise, I know we would have moved out by now. Even the short time we were here and she still owned the property, we reached a point where we were seriously considering it. We would have put up with the financial hardship but, if we had, it would have caused more hardship for my brother than my mother, and none of us would have wanted that. He and his wife are the shining light of awesomeness that makes it all worthwhile!

Well, it’s getting late in the day. If I’m going to my mother’s tomorrow, and put a video together, I’d better get to it.

The Re-Farmer

Various things

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

It’s another chilly and wet day, so no progress outside.

The rain continued through the night, and this area where I’d scattered all those seeds is now full of water again. That will either benefit the seeds, or drown them!

Speaking of seeds, the first Wild Bunch Mix winter squash seed has a root emerging already! At least, it was 1 this morning, though when I check it again later today, I’m sure there will be more. I could just see them, starting to show through the snips in the outer shells I’d made.

I had some errands to run, so I headed out early enough to get to the post office before it closed until the afternoon. Then it was off to town, where I made a quick stop at the grocery store for a few things, then went to one of the hardware stores. I will be running out of seed starting mix soon, with all the seeds in the Wild Bunch Mix I have pre-germinating, so I wanted to get more of that. Then, after looking around, then finally asking someone, I found it!

I found vermiculite!

I couldn’t find it when I checked while in the city, yet there it was, locally. Quite a few bags in stock, too. I missed them at first, because the packaging is almost identical to one of the brand’s potting soils. I’m hoping this will help keep the moss and mold in some of our pots at bay.

My daughter had finally fixed some problems with her bank’s updated app, and was able to treat us today, so the last stop before heading home was for some take out from a Greek restaurant in town. A “Greek” restaurant, but with the most massive menu I’ve seen anywhere!

While I was out, I got a message from my husband telling me a package I was expecting tomorrow was in. I’d already been to the post office and it wasn’t there – or so I thought – so I stopped in again on the way. I figured it had to have been a non-post office delivery, but nope. As I was going in and out of the store, the rain turned to snow, then back to rain, then back to snow, then back to rain…

We’ll be getting that until at least midnight. Tomorrow is expected to be chillier than today, then things should finally start warming up again, the day after. Winter just doesn’t want to let go! This freeze/thaw cycle, though, is just tearing apart the gravel roads.

Once at home and looking at the packages I picked up, it turned out that what I thought was something else was the package my husband told me was in. Which is nice on the one hand, since it was something he ordered for me, but not so nice on the other, since it means his replacement CPAP hose and nose pieces aren’t in yet. He’s leaking air. He needs a new mask/headpiece (a hose arrangement the nose piece attaches to), too, but they were out of inventory.

On a completely different note, I got a call from my mother. She got another letter under her door from the public housing department that owns her building. It was a notice for beg bug spraying. She has been refusing to allow them in, as she believes one of the guys stole some stuff from her – stuff that she considered valuable, but are only valuable to her. She phoned the number on the letter and told the guy, she’s not afraid of bed bugs, but she is afraid of people coming in and stealing her stuff (the time she thinks this happened was more than a year ago). The guy said she must have misplaced them. This wouldn’t be the first time she’s believed someone has stolen from her. She had an envelope of money go missing and she all but directly accused one of her neighbours of going into her apartment while she was in the lounge. A couple of months later, she found the envelope.

So what my mother wants me to do is go through her stuff for her. The stuff in question, however, would be of interest to my sister for her genealogy records, so I suggested she call her. We could possibly do it together.

My daughter, however, pointed out something to me.

Personally, I don’t think my mother has bedbugs, so I haven’t been worried about it. However, if she *does* have bed bugs, and I start going through all the stuff in her bedroom, I’d be bringing them home – and with this house, we’d never be able to get rid of them. We’d have to move out and empty the house.

I’m going to have to call my mom back and tell her this. It’s one thing to go to her place and help her with her groceries. I’m basically just in her kitchen and little dining table, all near the door. It’s quite another to be in her bedroom, digging through her closest and shelves, going through stacks and stack of papers she’s got tucked in them.

*sigh*

She was going to call my sister then get back to me, but I’d better call her back now and get that over with.

She’s not going to be happy, but then, she’s been refusing to allow her place to be treated. Actions have consequences.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Sloooowwww….

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

I was intending to write my daily post earlier, with a video that I edited together.

Well, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

Photo by invisiblepower on Pexels.com

I save the video as high quality instead of merely “good” quality. Which makes a 12 minute video into a much larger file.

It’s 70% uploaded to YouTube, but will apparently take another 2 hours and 19 minutes to upload.

I thought it would finish uploading while I did the evening chores and made myself something to eat, but I think the upload paused when my computer went to sleep or something.

*sigh*

Ah, well. I guess I’ll post it tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer

News, and weird Amazon stuff

/ Re-Farmer / 13 Comments

The first news: We got a call from the septic guy this morning. He will be able to come out to replace the pill switch in our tank on Friday – just a couple more days of running the pump manually! So I went into town to pick up cash to pay him, then took advantage of the trip to run a few errands.

The second news: I heard from the Cat Lady this morning. Wolfman didn’t eat during the night and is understandably scared. Being taken to a vet today isn’t going to be helping that much. He’s one of the more laid back cats, though, so it won’t take him long to settle in.

Now the weird thing.

Some time ago, my husband got a notice that he’d been approved for a Mastercard.

He hadn’t applied for one.

The only thing they needed was to confirm his ID, which would have included taking a bar code they provided to the post office (I checked with our postmaster, and she was familiar with this sort of thing). The post master would need to see a valid photo ID, though, which my husband still doesn’t have, so the whole thing was just sort of ignored.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Well, today, my husband got another email.

The MC he was approved for was with Amazon. They were letting him know that they were sending out his card, but that the number was already attached to his Prime account and ready to use at any time.

He was approved for an $8000 limit.

WTF???

How can Amazon just decide to send someone a credit card without them ever applying for it? They didn’t even wait for the ID verification process!

My husband and I have both only recently gotten credit cards to help rebuild our credit ratings. Both are low limit cards.

I guess it worked, for him to be approved for $8000!

Clearly, they want him to spend lots of money with them. That’s a temptation he doesn’t need. Particularly since he needs a new computer, too. The old work laptop he’s using has issues and limitations. We’re still paying off my computer, though, so we can’t even think about getting anything else until that’s paid off – and we should be setting money aside for things like vet bills or plumbers or vehicle repairs/maintenance or our next beef order, or…

He’ll take the card, though. It can be put in reserve for any major emergencies.

We’ve been without credit cards for some 20+ years, and now this…

Weird.

The Re-Farmer

Walmart top up: This is what $150 looks like

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

More specifically, $148.41, after discounts and taxes.

After parting ways with the Cat Lady, I actually headed to Canadian Tire, first, and saved Walmart for last, since I would have refrigerated items.

There’s 4 loaves of rye bread, four 4L bottles of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier, 4 blocks of cheese (mozza, old cheddar, Havarti and marble), a 2L of 3% milk, a 2L of soy milk, a 4L of 3% milk to make yogurt with, and a live bacteria culture container of Greek yogurt to use as a starter. The Kraft Dinner was really cheap, so I got a case for the girls, along with the feminine hygiene products. There’s also a large jar of olives, a jar of mayo, a 12pk of Fresca for my husband and another of Coke Zero for me. Last of all was a couple of packages of 50% off Easter chocolates, and a bottle of water for the drive home. Oh, I almost forgot. There’s 2 packages of rice crackers for my husband.

After I packed everything up in the truck, I actually went back in and bought a package of crew socks, which cost another $12 or so.

There’s a reason for that!

One of the things I went looking for at the Canadian Tire was a new pair of steel toed shoes. The ones I have now are splitting in the usual places on my right shoe. Because my feet are so wide, I’ve been buying men’s size 9 or 9.5, triple wide shoes. They are wide enough for my feet, but always too long. Of course, there’s about a half size difference between my feet (which is true of most people). Between the extra length and the different in foot size, when my shoes bend at the ball of my foot, it’s not the “right” area of the shoe, so they start splitting fairly quickly, with my right shoe always starting to split first.

Well, there wasn’t a lot of selection for steel toes shoes. Plenty for boots, but really just one for shoes. After trying a couple of pairs on, though, I was actually able to get my feet into some size 8’s!!! So I took a chance, and bought them. The shoes were about $80. Along with those, I got a couple more bags of stove pellets for the litters, so the total bill was just over $100 after taxes.

After loading the pellets into the truck, I promptly put on the new shoes, then went to Walmart.

As I was walking around at Walmart, though, my feet were starting to hurt. I injured my feet, many years ago, which is why they are so wide and totally flat. I’m actually under doctor’s order to wear supportive shoes all the time, including indoors. Which is so un-Canadian! 😄 I do have inside shoes, though, so I’m not wearing my work shoes indoors, at least! 😁 Anyhow, wearing shoes all the time has made a difference. It’s been ages since I’ve had a metatarsal suddenly dislocate on me.

But the more I walked around in them, the more I thought I might have made a mistake in going with the size 8s. They were really snug at the balls of my feet, where they are the widest.

Then I remembered something.

I was wearing my thick, thermal winter socks.

It’s getting warm enough out that I won’t need to wear those.

I clued into the problem as I was walking to back to the truck, so I returned to the Walmart once everything was loaded. I headed straight to the men’s section and managed to find some crew socks. I hate tall socks; they always fall down to my ankles, so I fold them down. For some reason, it’s hard to find crew socks. It’s either tall socks, or ankle socks, and ankle socks always end up getting pulled under my heel.

Problem solved!

So between everything, today cost me about $250, plus another $40 in gas. Gas prices here are mostly in the $1.439/L range (roughly $5.75/gallon), which is I believe the lowest in the country right now. Our province extended a fuel tax break, so when the carbon tax kicked in, the gas prices didn’t rise as much as in other places. I just took a look and the highest provincial average price right now is $1.937/L in BC (roughly $7.75/gallon) while the average across the country is $1.638/L (roughly $6.50/gallon).

*sigh*

In other things, I didn’t get a call back from the septic guy about replacing the pill switch in the septic tank, so I’ll call him again tomorrow. Between the cost of the switch, plus labour, I’m expecting it to be in the $300 range, but I want to know for sure before I take out the cash to pay him. With a tip, of course!

I really look forward to not having to activate the pump manually again!

All in good time.

The Re-Farmer

Costco shopping: this is what a total of $550 looks like

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today has turned out to be a gorgeous day! We’re supposed to reach a high above freezing, though I don’t think we have. No matter. The “feels like” temperature is much warmer, and things are melting all over the place!

First, an update.

We are still having troubles with our plumbing. Every time we think we finally got the toilet clear, it doesn’t last. So we’re keeping the honeypot set up, for those in between times when we have to let it sit with the bio maintenance stuff – which still does a much better job than the typical drain cleaners. I don’t want to do that hot water thing if we don’t have to, since toilets are not made for hot water, so we’re just going to have to be patient until we can get the plumber in.

On a completely different topic, my husband had a phone appointment with his doctor to go over his medications. He has one painkiller comes in two forms – fast acting and slow release – and one of those is simply not available. The supplier has no idea when they’ll get more. It seems almost as if my husband is the only person on it, in the country! Or at least the province. So he’s going to be going off that, cold turkey (his choice), and they’ll try him with another painkiller that’s just one step below morphine, when he gets his next bubble pack refills. Hopefully, it will do the job. With his pain levels, that’s just no way to live. He also asked about switching from a CPAP to a BiPAP. His CPAP is getting old and, for some reason, he’s having trouble getting his replacement hoses, etc. Some issue with his prescription. The machine itself is overdue for replacement. BiPAPs, however, are covered in this province, and would be better than a CPAP, anyhow. To get a prescription for one of those, though, he’ll have to get another sleep test done. His new doctor is going to arrange that.

In other things, when I did the morning rounds, I found the cat with the messed up eye, all curled up in a cat bed under the heat lamp! I was happy to see him. Judging from how he’s moving around, he may not have full vision in either eye. Or he might be sick. Not in any obvious way, other than the slow movement. Hopefully, he’ll stay close to the safety of the sun room. In total, I counted 30 yard cats this morning, including Sad Face.

Once all the morning stuff was done, I was off to Costco. My first stop was actually a gas station along the way, as the tank was just below half, and I try to never let the tank go below half. I put in only $30, as the price is $1.409/L there. In the city, most places are $1.399/L When I filled at Costco, it was $1.339/L, and cost me $62.75 to fill the tank, so total for gas today was $92.75

Then there was the Costco total.

This is a total $550.91

And we’re going to need to do another shopping trip, because I didn’t get everything on my list! That will be after we get the plumbing problems fixed.

I remembered to have the cat supplies on a separate bill.

Since I got 6 bags of kibble a couple of days ago, I got only 4 of the 9kg bags today. I also got two cases of canned cat food, plus another box of puppy pads.

I just got distracted while writing this, by a ruckus. Susan is on the cat shelf at the window, frantically chasing her own tail.

She caught it, too. Repeatedly!

But I digress!

Cat supplies alone totaled $232.66 for this trip. The dry kibble is probably a couple of bags short to last us the month, but at least we’re set for a few weeks.

Then it was stuff for us.

We got the big Kirkland brand package of toilet paper, and I got two double flats of eggs – 10 dozen in total. We’ll be boiling some for Easter, to go with the ones that are pickling in the fridge right now, but mostly these are just for normal eating. I got 5 pounds of butter – they had salted butter in stock this time! – canned chicken, their big Kirkland brand jar of mayonnaise, frozen perogies, basmati rice, and salad mixes. The salad mixes come in two packs, and I got two of those in two varieties, because they’re about half the price as at regular grocery stores! I got a larger container of whole peppercorns, a block of Old cheddar cheese, cream cheese, a couple of 2 packs of rye bread, 4 packages of tortilla wraps and a large jug of laundry detergent. Oh, and two hot rotisserie chickens, one of which is for supper today.

And there we have it. Our second stock up shopping trip for April. Add in the gas, and the grand total for today was $643.66 A couple of days ago, we spent $623.68, plus $30 in gas. Between the two trips, it’s a total of $1297.34 in supplies and gas for April, and we still didn’t get everything we’ll need for stocking up. That doesn’t even count the fresh stuff we’ll be getting as we need them, locally throughout the month!

Ouch.

Thank God for my husband’s private health insurance! If he had only his CPP Disability, there’d be barely over $100 left for the rest of the month. If you’re fortunate enough to have a job with a good health plan, please make sure you’ve got the best possible option for disability coverage! Hopefully, you’d never need it, but things can change in a heartbeat.

Once again, I digress!

We are not getting a lot for our money, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, on April 1, the new carbon tax kicks in, so we can expect prices for everything to be quite a bit higher, by the time we do our next trip.

The only thing we have left that we need for our Easter basket is a special loaf of bread. I could have picked up some babka, which would be traditional, and they did have some. Huge ones in two packs. Too big and too much for our needs. So instead, I’ll be baking bread for the basket, tomorrow.

I’m quite looking forward to putting our basket together. It’s always been one of my favourite traditions. 😊

The Re-Farmer